A green screen can completely change the visuals and background of the video. Do you know what can help you do it?
Exploring the best chroma key software or programs for editing videos with a green screen can take time and effort. How can you choose the best software for you when there are so many options, some of which you have to pay for and some of which you can get for free?
This article will give you an insight into some of the best free and paid green screen video editing software. We will also look at some of the best green screen apps for both Windows and Mac.
What is Green Screen Software?
Green screen software is a group of apps you can use to change a movie’s background. With these tools, you’ll find it easier to change the movie’s timeline and cut it down. They give you the option of making the background of the video clip a color of your choice. This and similar apps help you manage and exchange media files.
The most obvious use of green screens is in visual effects movies, newscasts, weather reports, YouTube videos, and other platforms. To make a green screen, you need a green or blue piece of cloth, a camera system, and green screen or chroma key software to separate the colored background from the foreground.
Benefits of using Green Screen
So, here are some helpful tips you can use on your computer when editing videos with a green screen.
In Producing Movies
Think about the last time you went to the theater to see a movie that was a big hit with the public. Green screen effects and chroma key editing were used in the movie to make it more interesting.
Whether it’s an Avenger fighting aliens, Godzilla scaring the people of Tokyo, or Leonardo Di Caprio showing off his wealth in The Wolf of Wall Street, all of these scenes used green screen special effects.
Using a green screen makes it possible for anyone to shoot with a background that looks like a pro did it. Most of the time, green screens add more complicated backgrounds. You can even use them to make a clean white background that is good for more formal business settings.
Make it easier for you to make a brand
Businesses can benefit from using green screen backgrounds in promotional videos. This is because it lets them add company logos to the background of the videos. You can easily brand your video by adding textures, colors, and other elements to the background. This will make your video stand out from the rest.
The Chroma Key editing software lets you add a watermark or logo to your videos, stopping people from copying them without your permission.
You are free to relocate whenever you want
Due to genuine concerns about cost and access, filmmakers might need help to make fantasy stories set in exotic places. This is because they have to deal with a lot of problems.
It’s safe to assume that amateur filmmakers won’t be willing to pay a lot of money to rent out a mansion to make a parody of The Great Gatsby, and they also won’t be willing to travel across the Polar ice caps to make a penguin documentary like the ones on Animal Planet.
Using green screens and the ” chroma-key ” editing method can help in this situation. Green screens make it easy and quick to change the background of a video. With just a few clicks of the mouse, movie directors can move a character quickly to any place they want, like the glaciers of Iceland or the Taj Mahal in India.
When a filmmaker uses these techniques and their skills in video editing, it might look like a made-up situation is completely real. As there are so many ways to change the background with a green screen, people who make videos will always have ideas for skits and sketches.
How to use a Green Screen to add Visuals or any Background?
Using a green or blue screen to shoot videos could be a game-changer when making live-action movies with custom backgrounds or special effects that look like they belong in Hollywood. To use a green screen while shooting, you have to film a person or add effects while they stand in front of a solid color.
Then, in post-production, you can drop that scene into any background you want by digitally removing or “keying out” that color. This will allow you to do so. “Chroma keying” is another name for taking out an image’s colored background.
Why did we decide to make the background green? Because it doesn’t match skin tone or hair color, it’s easy to take off and doesn’t require grabbing any part of the person in front.
The best choice is a blue screen if you’re trying to match a background with less light or if your project requires you to use a green prop.
Online green screen kits that are cheaper won’t be enough on their own. These kits usually have only one or two lights, but that’s enough to light your subject. This will make your background look patchy.
On top of that, it will be hard to fix in your video editor and take a long time. This kit may seem like it will solve all your problems, but it will give you a new set of problems.
After you’ve shot your video clip with a green or blue screen, you can use a video editing tool or green screen software to remove the colored background and put it in your new scene.
How to choose the right green screen software?
First, you should check the condition of your film to see if you can do basic keying or if you need something more complicated. Should you use a stand-alone program, a professional NLE (Non-Linear Editor), or a plug-in for the editor you already have? There are a few things to think about in this situation.
How did you record these videos? What kind of media did you use? Was it a MOV, MP4, AVI, MPG, or something else? Whether or not you can use a program depends on how the files are saved and what operating system you are using.
If you have an iOS or Android phone, you can see a preview of your footage before it goes to post-production. You can use the software that came with your camera or download another editing program with chroma key features to make sure the lighting is right on set or to share a quick clip with a producer who is far away.
Which of these three resolutions (720p, 1080p, or 4K) did you shoot in? Not all chroma key tools, especially free or trial ones, support 4K film. You may need to downconvert your material or upgrade to software that does support 4K if you want to use it.
How good is the video quality you have? Do you have a precise topic in the foreground and a clean, evenly lit green background?
If this is the case, you can often use a simple key and not do anything else to your photo. But if your green screen has camera movement, hot spots, wrinkles, or shadows, or if your person has flyaway hair or other parts that show green reflection (spill), you may need more advanced luma and chroma capabilities to fix it.
So, after analyzing all these situations, you can select any of the software from our recommended list given below.
Veed
With VEED’s easy-to-use online green screen video editor, you can remove the background from your videos with a button. Green screen video is one of the many things that VEED can do.
It is a full-fledged online video editor with a lot of features. It gives you everything you need, like filters, effects, the ability to change the frame rate, comments, text, subtitles, and more.
You can now remove the background from your movies on Veed with a button. Their web-based green screen video editor lets you tell the difference between the background, the green screen, and the foreground, which is you and anything else in your video. This means you can change your background to anything you want, like a blank screen, a photo, a slide, etc.
ScreenPal
ScreenPal screen technology makes it easy to change your background to something else. When working with Screenpal, there are two ways to use a green screen.
You can eliminate the green background by using a green screen recorder or video editing program. You can create various special effects through the chroma key tool and bring elegant transformations to the video.
Filmora is a fast and easy-to-use program for making videos. It has all the latest features needed to make movies that look like professionals made them. It works well at home and the office and is also great for editing green-screen movies.
Filmora is an app that makes it easy to bring your screenplays to life on the big screen. This movie-making tool has features like Layers, Titles, the MultiCam Editor, and Other Effects that will help you bring your creative ideas to life.
It is easy to use, even for people with little experience, because it is made to be user-friendly. It has many features, like a MultiCam Editor, Green Screen Editor, Motion Tracking, and many more. Wondershare Filmora works with both Windows and Mac operating systems, and you can download a free trial version to see how it works.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is an animation and composition program for very advanced professionals. It lets people use data files to make interactive visual effects and motion graphics.
Our team chose After Effects as the best green screen editor for animation because it lets users add smooth motion to any element, such as titles, credits, and graphics. It’s the best way to make complicated, data-driven 2D animations.
After Effects can make and edit 360-degree virtual reality videos and environments that look more authentic. Even if you don’t have a green screen, you can use rotoscoping, chroma key, and luma key effects to make effects that look completely real. With these effects, you can make your subject stand out.
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere is a well-known subscription service for editing videos that gives users high-end tools and many ways to work together. This is the best green screen editor for industry professionals. It’s because it provides plenty of advanced features and a standard non-linear editing interface.
Premiere Pro comes with Adobe Media Encoder, which can change files into almost any format. It also has batch processing, which is helpful for professionals working on many files at once. The program’s green screen features are controlled by color and luma keys.
Kapwing
Kapwing is a green screen video editor which lets you remove the background from the video clip you’re working on. You can add different visual effects to your movies with the help of this program.
It lets you make a video without watermarks and makes trimming your videos more accessible.
Kapwing gives users some essential editing tools, like a chroma key that is easy to use. But it doesn’t let you change colors in complicated ways and only lets you export a limited number of files. It’s an easy-to-use tool that works well for people just starting out or at home.
Runway
Runway is an excellent software with everything a video producer needs to edit videos. It lets people edit movies using machine learning. The program speeds up the whole process of editing videos by allowing the user to use a wide range of tools and features from their browser. Masking, color correction, compositing, generation, and visual effects (VFX) are some of these.
Also, since it can rotoscope, producers can quickly edit any movie to make it look like it was shot in front of a green screen. With Runway’s Inpainting tool, parts of the video that don’t need to be there are taken out automatically. This makes it easier and faster to edit.
Clipchamp
Clipchamp is a free platform for making videos. It has a video editor, a webcam recorder, a video compressor, and a video converter. It lets you cut, trim, change the speed, and add titles, filters, and clips to your movies. Clipchamp lets you make and edit movies on both Windows and Mac systems.
Also, combining your and professional assets could be a smart move. You can drag and drop as much video, graphics, and music as you want into your project using this free chroma key software. You can also make advertisements for YouTube, Facebook, Slideshow, and Instagram.
Flixier
Flixier is a chroma-critical video editor that runs in a browser and can be viewed on any device. The process was designed to be simple and quick when it was created. You don’t need an account to start, and there isn’t even a cost for using it.
Flixier is not an exception to the rule that internet tools usually come with many pre-made templates that allow you to produce quality material in a matter of minutes. This is common knowledge. Various video template options are available, including ones for celebrations, Instagram, Facebook, Promo, and more.
Conclusion
The majority of the green screen editors on our list include robust and accurate chroma key features. However, they are designed with the needs of pros in mind. Beginners, amateurs, and content makers for social media platforms are forced to turn elsewhere due to the complexity of the editing tools and the hefty cost of using them.
You can also explore some best motion graphic software to create something remarkable.